


lovers, upright and reversed

by mewrobot



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Canonical Child Abuse, Canonical Rape/Non-con, Character Study, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Major Character Injury, Suicide Attempt, no graphic detail but references kamoshida's abuses, nothing more graphic than canon though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25744510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mewrobot/pseuds/mewrobot
Summary: ann takamaki and the person she's willing to risk everything for; that special person who will change her own heart. even with all the pain along the way, there's light at the end.
Relationships: Kurusu Akira & Takamaki Ann, Suzui Shiho & Takamaki Ann, Suzui Shiho/Takamaki Ann
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	lovers, upright and reversed

**Author's Note:**

> this was done for a challenge in our household lit club to write from the POV of a character we haven't written for before. i love ann and i hope i've done her justice in this piece! apologies for formatting iffiness.

Ann hated critique day in art class. Drawing wasn’t her strong point, and it seemed like all the other girls were so much better at it than her. Especially Suzui, who’s currently holding her painting and twisting her face in a way she probably doesn’t realize.

“Well… it’s, uh,” Suzui starts. “The… pigs are an interesting choice.”

Ann raises her eyebrows, and says with a self-effacing laugh, “They’re dogs, actually.”

“Oh! Oh. Um.”

“It sucks, doesn’t it?” Ann tightens a lock of blonde hair around her finger, looking away.

“...Well, yeah, but I want to give actual comments about it--”

The sudden bluntness in such a soft-spoken kind voice surprises Ann so much she can’t help but genuinely laugh. A high ringing laugh that makes some other kids stare.

“Geez, you’re more honest than you look, Suzui.”

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be mean. Plus, you said it, not me,” Suzui responds, placing the painting back on the desk. “I think it’s cute, though.”

“Hey, hey, don’t start lying now,” Ann replies. “What comments do you have?”

“Um.. well, I know animals are hard to draw. So.. this is something I learned to do for my own art projects. Draw something, anything, like.. A shrimp. Draw a shrimp from memory. It’s pretty hard, right? You’ll look at it after and think it doesn’t look right at all. Then look up a photo and try to draw what you see. Then put the photo away and try drawing by yourself again. You’ll gradually get better grasps of it.”

Ann nods along. She never did much practicing for this class. The teacher didn’t seem to grade too harshly on talent, so it was a laid-back class. Suzui seems pretty serious about it, though.

“Also, for color choices, you can look at the color wheel-- like the one on the wall-- so they don’t clash…” Suzui’s eyes are darting around at the painting, and she’s got one hand on her chin. In every other class, Suzui stays quiet unless called on, and she’s never this intense about anything. Well, art class and P.E., Ann remembers. Suzui gets shockingly competitive in that class sometimes.

“You’re really into art, huh…” Ann says.

“Oh, it’s just a hobby for me, really,” Suzui clarifies. “It’s a fun class, and I like getting better without the stress of having to be the  _ best _ , you know?”

“You’re one of the best here, I think,” Ann says, and then immediately feels a little embarrassed about it. Why is she so set on complimenting Suzui so much? But then Suzui giggles bashfully as a thank-you, and Ann’s heart turns into sunshine. So this is what friendship feels like, she thinks. It’s been a while since she’s felt it.

It’s more than that, of course, but Ann’s revelations move slowly.

Suzui gives some more pointers, but Ann misses most of them, lost in watching Suzui’s hands draw and erase so quickly as demonstration, and the way her eyes dart around.

“So, um, before we run out of time, do you wanna see mine?”

Ann snaps out of her daze. “Huh? Oh! Yeah! Lemme see it.”

Shiho hands over her painting, and Ann stares at it. She doesn’t have the technical words to comment on it properly, but she can without a doubt recognize it as beautiful. The canvas is full of color, with tropical birds in a sunset sky.   
“Oh wow,” Ann says. “This must have taken a long time… the colors are super pretty.”

Shiho thanks her, and describes her artist’s process: “I was thinking about the Hawaii trip the second-years are going on, and I really wanted to draw something tropical. Plus, I just really like birds.”

The bell rings for lunchtime, ending the critique session. Ann feels her daily dull sadness build up in her chest. She usually sits by herself in the courtyard for lunch, away from all the other students who stare at her. She brings it on herself, other students will claim, since she’s so flashy. She likes the attention, they say. All those names that toss around in her head each night, they’re all her own fault. Once upon a time, Ann would eat in common areas, but one day that boy at the next table over asked “Is it true foreign girls are easy?” so loudly it just threw her over the line. It’s easier to just eat quickly, alone, and spend the rest of the period on her phone or wandering the library.   
She’s fine having no one. Really. Ryuji has long moved on from their middle school friendship and only hangs out with other boys now. Once he got really into track and field, the two of them stopped talking altogether. Whatever. He’s a flake and a weirdo anyway. It’s _fine_.

“Hey, do you wanna go eat lunch together?”

Ann’s in the middle of packing up her bag and walking away on autopilot, but Suzui’s question knocks her back to earth. It takes her an awkward second to respond.

“I mean, unless you already have--”

“No, no! I mean, sure! I usually eat in the courtyard, so do you wanna go there?”

“Sure!”

Ann learns over lunch that Suzui usually eats alone too, and that it’s been hard for her to make friends. The two of them watch sports teams run around in the fields, all of the athletes sporting harsh determined expressions. Suzui’s mirroring it right now, Ann notices.

“I wanna join the volleyball team, though,” Suzui says. “I’ve been practicing a lot and I think I’ll be able to get in.”

“Yeah? Kamoshida’s got super high standards, being an Olympian and all… he wants nothing less than a superstar team.”

“I know! That’s why I want to join. I want to keep getting better and bring home the gold!” She does a little triumphant pose with her arms that makes Ann chuckle.

“Well, good luck! I’ll be rooting for you, Suzui!”

“Heh, you can call me Shiho.”

Ann becomes Shiho’s cheerleader during practice sessions, and lunchtime is never lonely anymore. Thank god, the first year of high school doesn’t have to be miserable. Ann’s full of hope again.

\---

It’s their second year now, and Ann wishes she had just stopped Shiho from ever trying to join the volleyball team. Shiho got in, and the two of them celebrated, but quickly Shiho started leaving practice with tired eyes and bruised legs. 

“Practice is rough,” she’d always say. “Sports are like that.”

Ann would always wait for her after practice whenever she was free from modeling gigs, there to give her snacks and sports drinks. And she’d see Kamoshida there, leaving the gym and  _ looking _ .

“You girls look tired. You want a ride home?”

It was always the car rides. The convenience of car rides built up as a bank of “favors” that Ann would end up having to repay. After Shiho was dropped off first, Kamoshida looked after her and sighed.

“Suzui’s falling behind. I’m gonna have to bench her if it keeps up.”

Kamoshida had started planting the seeds of what he hoped to pluck out. It kept happening: head-shakes and “not good enough” and more pain on Shiho’s face. Ann felt powerless, watching Shiho’s dreams slip away and leave behind wounds.

And then Kamoshida made his proposition blatant one night, when the two of them were alone long after all the other teachers had left.

“Listen, I know the two of you are close friends. And I get you want your friend to keep her position on the team. So, how about you come with me for a night out? Just one night. And she’ll stay on this season.”

Ann’s brain started screaming for her to run in the other direction. But something else tugged at her. If she did this, Shiho would keep the position she worked so hard for. And.. maybe she could protect Shiho from hurt. So she agreed, for one night of dreadful awkward dinner and a ride home with too much familiar chatter.

And then that turned into exchanged numbers and texts. So many texts. Calls for more. The line gets pushed further and further, and Ann outruns it as best as she can, but it’s too much. She breaks down and rejects him flatly one night as she walks through Shibuya station, and the silence before he hangs up fills her with dread. She blinks away tears and looks up to see that weirdo transfer student and his cat staring at her.

She runs. And he chases her. “Wait!” he calls. “Hold on, let me--” Kurusu catches Ann by the shoulder. 

“That was Kamoshida, wasn’t it?” he asks way too loudly.

“None of your business!” she spits back, pushing his hand away.

“I know what he’s doing,” he says in a lower voice. “He’s been abusing students. No one has been admitting it, but I know it’s happening. If I can get  _ someone  _ to talk, I can do something about it.”

Ann scoffs. What can he do? Kamoshida’s got the school wrapped around his finger and this Kurusu kid is already hated by the staff and students. What, is he gonna rack up another assault charge?

“I will believe you. I’ve seen it happen. You don’t have to hide it and bear it alone,” he says, gazing at her with a surprisingly soft expression. He offers his hand. “Sorry for grabbing you, by the way.”

Ann thinks for a moment, and decides that the weight of knowledge is at least worth getting off her chest. She can talk. That’s fine enough. She shakes his hand.

“Let’s go somewhere else. The burger place in the Square.”

They find a booth in a corner and Ann takes a good twenty minutes to work up the ability to speak. Kurusu is patient, scrolling through his phone and occasionally glancing up to watch if Ann’s ready yet, or feeding fries to his cat.

Ann takes a deep breath, and it all spills out. The “dates”, the texts, Shiho’s position on the team, and that horrible deal she took to preserve it.

“I just can’t say no now,” she cries into her soda, “Because then Shiho will be hurt. He’ll take her off the team or hurt her more or-- he might do  _ this  _ to her.”

She puts her head on the table and sobs. “I don’t actually want any of this. People say I do, but I didn’t ask for it! I’m not his little girlfriend.”

Kurusu makes a noise of acknowledgement, and sighs through his nose.

“People say a lot of shit.”

“I know. I know, and now everything hurts and I can’t stop it.”

Ann sits back up and wipes her eyes, and takes another deep breath. “I guess it does make it hurt less to say something. Thanks for believing me. I guess you’re not as scary and evil as everyone says, too,” she says, punctuating it with a laugh that’s more of an exhale.

Kurusu pushes up his glasses and kicks his feet up. “No. I’m bad to the bone.”

That gets a genuine laugh out of Ann. Okay, so he’s just a regular loser.

“I guess I should head out. I don’t know what you’re planning on doing, but… I just hope something will change. And I hope Shiho will be okay, after I said no today…”

As Ann left to go home, she didn’t realize just how quickly her fears would be confirmed on that terrible next morning, in the middle of the homeroom period.

A girl’s shriek stopped Kawakami’s lecture in its tracks. 

_ “Oh my god, she’s gonna jump!” _

Ann’s blood turns to ice. _ No. It can’t be. _ Her dash out the door knocks over chairs and textbooks, pushes past gawking classmates, and stops at the window that keeps her divided from Shiho on the ledge. She’s close enough that Ann can make out the hazy, trancelike expression on her face, but far away enough that Ann can’t grab her. Can’t pull her close, hold her so tight that she couldn’t possibly get away, so tight that nothing would take her away.

“Please. Please don’t,” Ann murmurs uselessly, barely above a whisper.

Shiho closes her eyes, and exhales. Ann’s stomach churns, threatening to make her sick right here in the hall.

Shiho drops.

The entire hall of students erupts into a horrid chorus of screams. But Ann is silent, frozen in the space where Shiho once was.

“ _ Shiho _ ,” she manages to wheeze out, before she can finally move. And move she does, as fast as she can, in the vain hope if she just runs fast enough, she can catch Shiho in her arms. But she feels like she’s in a nightmare where her legs move like molasses. Around every corner, there are people crowded, chattering, blocking. Ann pushes them aside like nothing, clawing her way outside into the courtyard, into the spot where Shiho lay. Ann drops to her side, close enough to see that Shiho is miraculously still breathing. Ann thanks every deity she can think of in her head.

“I’m sorry,” Shiho mutters, looking up at Ann with apologetic, grieving dark eyes.

“Why?” Ann asks in reply. Why is she sorry? Why did this happen? Why, why?  
“I just couldn’t take it anymore… Kamoshida...” Shiho uses what strength she has to pull herself to Ann’s ear and whisper the truth. The truth of what went on in that office. What those post-practice sessions really were. Kamoshida’s disgusting, shameful, burning secret.

Ann’s crumbling inside, but she sweeps the pieces all together in a pile. She has to be strong. She can’t cause any more pain. The paramedics arrive, and ask for someone to come with Shiho in the ambulance. Teachers are busy yelling at everyone to go back inside. Other staff members look around nervously. Students take photos and stare.

“I’ll go,” Ann says, climbing into the ambulance.

She doesn’t understand everything the doctors say, but Shiho’s now trapped in a hospital bed, barely responsive. The days become a blur of lectures that only buzz in her ears, trains, and sterile white hallways. Every time she sees Kamoshida hanging around the school entrance, Ann’s instincts battle between running away at full speed, and running towards him to scratch off that stupid smug face.

That Kurusu boy and Ryuji seem to have Kamoshida’s attention for the time being, though. They’re going to be expelled in a few weeks for “attacking” him. Ann doesn’t need the boys’ vehement denial to know there’s no way that actually happened. Lies upon lies. It’s still weird, though, the way those two sneak around after school and hang out in corners, seemingly plotting something. Ann starts to follow them, worried that they’re just going to pull some stunt to make everything worse.

That’s how she found the castle. That’s how she found the inside of Kamoshida’s heart. And that’s how she found Carmen: her burning, loud, unashamed mask. Crawling through the depths of Kamoshida’s depraved desires took its toll, but each Shadow killed made Ann feel a little bit stronger. It was all for Shiho’s sake, and also her own.

The Thieves took Kamoshida’s precious treasure, the crown that made him king of the school, and that pathetic man crumpled into a mess, begging for death. And Ann refused him.

“There are fates worse than death,” is what she explained to her teammates when they asked why she showed mercy. And it was true; Ann would rather see him rot with regret than die like a coward.

His departure from the school lifted a heavy weight from Ann’s shoulders. People stopped staring and name-calling (as much, she guessed), and some girls even came up to apologize. Ann could walk the halls confidently for the first time in ages. If only Shiho could see how things have changed. Ann still visits her as often as possible; in the weeks since, Shiho has woken up and started walking again.  _ She’s getting stronger every day _ , Ann thinks with a pained admiration.

Months pass. The Thieves grow as a team. Palaces rise and fall. Shiho’s joking again like she used to. Ann does more modeling shoots, spurred to take it more seriously. She and Akira train harder together. Mementos grows. Exam season comes and goes. Shiho’s smiling again, and that makes Ann smile too. The sun shines again in her chest.

“I’m going to change schools once I’m out of here,” Shiho announces one day. “I just don’t think I could go back there every day.”

Ann processes that quietly for a moment. She misses Shiho so much, but she understands. The memories are still so raw. Even Ann feels a sudden tightness and panic some days.

“I get that,” Ann replies. “Hey, it’s a pretty sorry excuse for a school anyway.”

“I want to go one last time, though. To that spot. I think it’ll like… close it up for me. Would you go with me?”

“Of course. Of course I will.”

Shiho’s finally released from the hospital, and she goes with Ann to that spot on the roof. The school has quietly installed a fence around it. Akira’s there too, invited by Ann as her own moral support. Shiho is remarkably calm, looking out at the campus and holding onto Ann’s arm.

“You know,” Shiho starts, “I don’t think I actually wanted it. It’s like I was being pushed, with nowhere else to go.”

Ann nods sadly, holding Shiho even closer. Tears are pricking at her eyelids.

“But now I realize how much I do want to stay in this world. If not here at Shujin, still here in the same place where there’s people like you, Ann.”

Shiho suddenly turns to face Ann and traps her in a tight embrace.

“I love you.”

Ann feels like her heart’s going to stop. She gasps out in a tearful wheeze,

“I love you too, Shiho.”

Ann can hear Akira slipping back inside to give the girls their privacy, and it makes the two of them snort a little. But Ann appreciates it, because in this moment where it’s just her and Shiho, she can feel her strength at the highest it’s ever been.

She looks Shiho in the eye, and then presses her lips to hers. Shiho returns the kiss, and they hug so tight that Ann feels like no one could ever pull them apart.

And Ann understands that physical distance won’t mean anything at all. The bond of The Lovers will not be broken.


End file.
